Anyway, this is the first dry pole position for the RB9! Somewhat odd to have their first dry pole in a low downforce circuit but a great achievement nonetheless.

To be honest, I was not really surprised that Vettel got the pole here in the dry. What surprised me more was Webber's ability to lock out the front row.

RBR's race to lose here. Alonso is Vettel's main threat and it is important for Webber to play the rear gunner for Sebastian, but I doubt Webber would do that and might even fancy the lead after T1. It is imperative to keep their eyes on the Ferraris as they are always lightning quick off the start.

It is a long drag race to T1, maybe more than 500m long. In 2011, Alonso shot from from 4th to 1st to take the lead after T1.

Great point about the Ferraris, although it helps that Hulkenberg is there for a little bit of a buffer.

Weather forecast will be interesting though, and if it rains pretty heavily, it might be an SC start...

I prefer a start behind the safety car if it rains, regardless if they use inters or full-wet weather tyres in the race. A standing start on inters is too risky for the front runners and might cause havoc at the chicane (T1).

Just finished watching race 2 of GP3 and it is very cloudy at Monza race circuit. Personally I think we are in for a dry race, but the condition could change with 4 more hours to go before the start.

A safety car start will be favorable for the top 3, as this will negate the advantage of the Ferrari's lightning quick start tendencies.

Anyway, I think whether its dry or wet, the RB9 will be competitive, although a wet race could throw a spanner in the works.

RB9 should be good in the rain too. The fact that they are having a much higher top-end speed means that RB9 is not aggressively short-geared for this race. This is good in wet weather condition as a slightly longer gear-ratio means less wheel-spin. RBR might be looking for potential rain today when they set-up the car in the qualifying.

I don't think the slightly damaged front wing means much, as it has been proven often.

That said, the RB is clearly the most technologically advanced car in most ways. You only need to look to the fact that the closest rivals, Ferrari and Mercedes, have well documented car and/or operational issues.

I don't think the slightly damaged front wing means much, as it has been proven often.

That said, the RB is clearly the most technologically advanced car in most ways. You only need to look to the fact that the closest rivals, Ferrari and Mercedes, have well documented car and/or operational issues.

You don't believe the FWEP which helps turn air around front tyre affects performance negatively? No way. With it damaged more air is slamming up against the tyre and the FWEP vortex is now nonexistent which obviously adversly effects airflow to the rest of the car.

You don't believe the FWEP which helps turn air around front tyre affects performance negatively? No way. With it damaged more air is slamming up against the tyre and the FWEP vortex is now nonexistent which obviously adversly effects airflow to the rest of the car.

Of course it does. It just doesn't affect the car as much as we think and often doesn't make that much of a difference in the end. There's a reason they didn't change the front wing (which these days, does not take that long to change)

Not a perfect result, but RBR will take 1st and 3rd any time of the day in Monza where their best result to-date is a single podium finish in 2011. The RB9 is far from dominant not when Hulkenberg was only 0,3s off Vettel in Q3. There were nervous moments when Vettel was asked to short-shift in 5th and 6th while Webber was told to do the same in the lower gears especially around T2, Vettel also had to nurse the 1st stint on options as he smoked his front right going into T1 on the opening lap.

Overall, RBR had found updates that work after the summer break for low DF circuits. They are 3 out of 3 in all low-DF circuits.

Congrats to Vettel for his 32nd win and Webber for getting his 1st ever podium finish in Monza.

The RB9 is far from dominant not when Hulkenberg was only 0,3s off Vettel in Q3.

Far from dominant? Seriously? Vettel has won over half this seasons races and has dominated the field since summer break. To say otherwise is crazy IMHO. Think Hulk will be 0.3s off in Singapore? He was nowhere in the race. The Quali performance of Hulk isn't any indication of the RB9 performance level.

Of course it does. It just doesn't affect the car as much as we think and often doesn't make that much of a difference in the end. There's a reason they didn't change the front wing (which these days, does not take that long to change)

The Engineers had the benefits of the telemetry to see whether the damage to the front wing had any effects on the front tyres or not, and the lap time in general. Remember that Webber had similar incident with Guido Van Der Garde in Canada, another low DF circuit. His front tyres were not affected because Canada supposedly did not have any high-lateral force corners. But Monza has Lesmo 1, Lesmo 2, exit of Ascari chicane and Parabolica where the G-force exceed 3.00. But apparently the damage was minor enough that the RBR Engineers did not think it was worth replacing during Webber's pitstop. It was the correct decision because had they made the FW replacement, Webber would have been stucked behind Massa after the pitstop.

Far from dominant? Seriously? Vettel has won over half this seasons races and has dominated the field since summer break. To say otherwise is crazy IMHO. Think Hulk will be 0.3s off in Singapore? He was nowhere in the race. The Quali performance of Hulk isn't any indication of the RB9 performance level.

But we are not talking about Singapore. We are talking about Monza.

IMHO, some of the big boys underperformed in the qualifying yesterday and that was the main reason Hulk was able to nick it to P3 with only 0.3s behind the fastest Red Bull. Hamilton could certainly have challenged for P1 but he made some errors in Q2. Rosberg lost saturday practice time and stated his car had too much understeer during qualifying. Alonso too underperformed as he started behind his teammate. Whether you like it or not, Hulk was simply lucky to grab that P3 yesterday, but he was only 0.3s off Vettel's best time. Bear in mind that Vettel's lap wasn't a scruffy one either, and he had no discernable mistakes on his Q3 run.

Vettel won because he got P1 and got the clean air to run his own race. That was his usual proven strategy and he executed it to perfection. He was so determined to be 1st after T1 that he smoked his front right rather badly. If he got stucked behind any other driver, he would not have won this GP because RB9 is not designed to work in the dirty air of other cars. In Hungary, Vettel suffered from overheating for not being able to overtake Button as his car lacked the top-end speed.

Last year it was the alternators and Karthikeyan; this year the gearbox is giving the team a bit of headache and had already cost Vettel and RBR 25pts in Silverstone.

Seb's win, Mark's first podium finish & his personal best result in Monza. Fantastic job from all around. Congrats, Christian too.

Car 1 Sebastian Vettel, Finish Position: 1st, Start Position: Pole Position “It’s fantastic to win this event again. I just managed to make turn one! I locked the front right and it just didn’t seem to come back. I had a big flat spot, which I felt straight away and I wasn’t sure if the tyre would survive, but fortunately I managed to make it round and have a strong first stint. I pushed straight away to get a bit of a gap, in case we had to stop early and change to a two-stop strategy. We had a gearbox issue and I had to short shift, which meant we dropped some time in the straights – but I tried to make it up in the corners. It’s great to finish on the top step. The podium here is always very passionate. We are in Italy and when you walk around outside the track, you see Ferrari clothing and merchandise in all the shops starting from the smallest sizes upwards; it’s part of their DNA, which I understand. It was great for the Tifosi to have Fernando on the podium today. The season is going well and we’re pushing hard, but we take each race as it comes. We’re looking forward to Singapore next, which I want to finish; I think it’s the toughest race we have all year.”

Car 2 Mark Webber, Finish Position: 3rd, Start Position: 2nd “It’s a great place here and it’s very special to finish on the podium. It’s not the circuit where I’ve had the best results in the past, so it’s a bit of a personal best for me in qualifying and the race. I felt better on the soft tyres today; I had a good battle with Fernando, fair play to him on that and then afterwards I settled in to getting my head down and getting on with the race. We got Felipe on the stop, which was great. I was happy with my in-lap, the pit stop was great and then my out-lap was strong, so we cleared him reasonably comfortably. We had to nurse the gearbox a bit at the end, but overall it was a good result. Seb is very strong around here and it was great to get such a good result today.”

Christian Horner, Team Principal: “A fantastic way to achieve our 40th victory and Sebastian’s 32nd. To win and finish third in Monza, which is one of the most historic events, is testimony to our strong team work today. It’s been a fantastic effort behind the scenes in preparation for this event. We had some issues that we had to manage during the race and the pit stops in particular were great and enabled Mark to get ahead of Felipe Massa. It’s very impressive how the whole team have all contributed to this fantastic result.”

Q: Sebastian, in parc ferme you changed gears five, six and seven I think, because you already had a warning of the same problems with the transmission that you had during the race, or was it a completely different problem, or just to be more safe for the race?
SV: We already saw something on Friday, obviously something similar but Friday to Saturday we changed the gearbox and then I think in the race it was a surprise. We were obviously aware of the Friday problem but we didn’t see anything before that. There’s not much you can do; obviously once you start the car there’s nothing you can change so in the end, I think we were lucky or in a comfortable position to have a little bit of a gap especially towards the end. I don’t know what they saw on the pit wall in terms of data, if the problem got worse and worse and worse or stabilised, but obviously I tried to save the car, save the engine and gearbox as much as I can. In the end, I still have to go full power on the straights; basically try to short shift and save the car a little bit.

- First corner lock-up

Q: Sebastian, I think the only hard moment was at the start when you locked up the front tyres a bit. How was it after that, please?
SV: Our start was difficult, as I mentioned. I didn’t get off the line that well, couldn’t see Mark so tried to give him enough room and then tried to brake late, probably a little bit too late, locked the front right and then had lots of vibrations after that because I had a flat spot on the front right tyre. Fortunately we weren’t front limited on this circuit, so the front tyre was not a big issue, so I tried to look after the rears after that and we still got far enough to make the one stop work.

- Mark's front wing damage

Q: Mark, can you describe your side of when Alonso passed you and how badly did that damaged wing affect your race?

MW: I think that I braked pretty deep into there, so did Fernando. It was early in the race, we were still to get a feel for where everything is. Obviously as Fernando touched on, it’s very easy to go straight there and not make the entry to the chicane. I was also mindful of the fact that I wanted to make the entry to the chicane as well but when Fernando then got pretty much level on the outside of three, the chess match is over, basically, so you then obviously have to concede and look to take the fight to another part of the race. The wing, I think, wasn’t too bad. I think we’ve had quite a few little snags on the front wings this season but that seemed to be OK. It wouldn’t have helped; I don’t think we had the best balance in the first ten, 15 laps because of that. As the race went on towards the end, it might not have been too bad to help the stint but I couldn’t go anywhere against that with Felipe and at the end of the stop the guys might have tweaked it up a little bit, but in general, not a big difference. I was concerned that the wing might have been more damaged when I saw it go and also on the back straight on the way to the Parabolica I thought I saw Fernando’s left rear - just an illusion maybe - but I saw the tyre about to go down but it didn’t, it stayed up and in the end we both survived.

- Their pace this week

Q: Sebastian, Adrian Newey in Spa said that Monza wouldn’t be a positive track for Red Bull, but looking at the dominance here, maybe he was wrong. What happened, how were you able to change the situation?

SV: I think he was as surprised as we were. Just on the way up to the podium, he said ‘I thought that it was going to be damage limitation this weekend.’ I said to him ‘well, if damage limitation is like that, I want to have a lot of damage for the rest of the season.’ It was very unexpected. Already the pace on Friday surprised us. From a balance point of view, I was very happy with the car, similar to two years ago. So obviously we’ve been very competitive in Canada, very competitive in Spa on medium downforce tracks. This one was a little bit unknown. We haven’t been the fastest down the straights again, but fast enough, somewhere in the mid-field which is enough to use the strengths that we have through the corners, despite running as little wing as we can afford.

Congratulations Red Bull on a dominant performance today. Now Vettel is so far ahead I've just sort of resigned myself to the fact that this championship is over and I don't resent it so much now

One thing has crossed my mind about the Red Bull this year. An explanation for their speed might just be the fact that their car has always been an evolution since 2009. They are so finely tuned to the design philosophy that they know exactly how to set the car up, they are understanding much better the trade offs of high downforce and low downforce and the drivers, particularly Vettel, are perfectly attuned. Their biggest strength this year has been their metronomic consistency, whereas the other teams have struggled with the set up here and there, or struggled with the tyres or some other minor issue.

I know this isn't exactly a groundbreaking analysis, but I think it's important to point out that while the RB9 doesn't have dominant pace it holds this implicit advantage over the rest that has perhaps contributed to Vettel's success this year.

So that is why the car was running with the flashing red light on ? I was puzzled by that during the race. But, if I recall correctly, it was in that mode already early in the race, and not just near the end when the order to short switch was issued.

The gearbox can still cause trouble in the remaining races. Wouldn't a gearbox change in Singapore result in a 5 place grid penalty ? In Vettel's car it is currently 4 races old (starting after Silverstone where it failed).

Both cars' gearboxes are damaged and they have to run with the same one in Singapore (its last race), they'll have to look if they can repare it without penalty or risking a DNF, of course a grid penalty in that race is not ideal because it's not easy to overtake but looking at the championship maybe it's better to lose some positions at the start than risk a retirement.

They'd be stupid to not take a 5 spot penalty (which for Vettel means starting 6th or 7th and still finishing on the podium probably) to go for a quite probable DNF. Sure you forfeit your chance to win but you do the same by racing with a broken gearbox.

Both cars are on the 4th race with the gearbox. They will have to use it for Singapore and get a free change of gearbox in Korea.

I'd say use that gearbox and inspect it after the friday practices (FP2), which you are allowed to do. If you see signs of damages to any of the components , try to get them changed like they did after the qualifying in Monza. RBR might succeed or they may not succeed, but there is no harm in trying (the operative word is whether FIA determines the change to be on systematic basis). If RBR do not succeed in changing the parts, then change to a new gearbox and take that 5-place grid penalty.

Singapore will see Vettel and Hamilton in their own class like last year, with Vettel suffering gearbox problems resulting in an easy win for Hamilton.

I will call it now.

Singapore will see Vettel and Hamilton in their own class like last year, with Vettel suffering gearbox problems resulting in an easy win for Hamilton.

Alonso is very good round Singapore too. If Ferrari's upturn in performance is the same with high downforce, then he'll be in there too, though qualifying could well come down to HAM/VET (but then i thought that last year only for Maldonado to pop himself up there)

Alonso is very good round Singapore too. If Ferrari's upturn in performance is the same with high downforce, then he'll be in there too, though qualifying could well come down to HAM/VET (but then i thought that last year only for Maldonado to pop himself up there)

I don't think Ferrari will be fast at Singapore - not in qualy but maybe in the race. Mercedes or Red Bull for pole with lotus possibly in the mix.

I don't think Ferrari will be fast at Singapore - not in qualy but maybe in the race. Mercedes or Red Bull for pole with lotus possibly in the mix.

IMO, Mercedes will be RBR main competition in Singapore. Lotus and Ferrari will be fighting for 3rd and 4th row of the grid.

If Vettel gets his 3rd straight win, and 7th of the season in Singapore, the championship is truly over. All the competitors would turn their attention to 2014. RBR will be using post Singapore races as a means to test 2014 updates.

Red Bull tweaked the RB9's aerodynamic set-up from a high-downforce configuration to a low-downforce configuration for the high-speed races in Belgium and Italy. In this video we analyse the hugely-successful changes that helped propel Sebastian Vettel to dominant race victories at Spa-Francorchamps and Monza and strengthen his position at the top of the drivers' standings.

IMO, Mercedes will be RBR main competition in Singapore. Lotus and Ferrari will be fighting for 3rd and 4th row of the grid.

If Vettel gets his 3rd straight win, and 7th of the season in Singapore, the championship is truly over. All the competitors would turn their attention to 2014. RBR will be using post Singapore races as a means to test 2014 updates.

Before Spa I thought 3 wins and Seb will be there. He's got 2 and 1 more takes him to 247 with a minimum of 60pts lead with 6 other races- then its just about finishing reasonably high up

Before Spa I thought 3 wins and Seb will be there. He's got 2 and 1 more takes him to 247 with a minimum of 60pts lead with 6 other races- then its just about finishing reasonably high up

A win in Singapore and most (if not all) of RBR's competitors will forego 2013 and concentrate for 2014. However, a DNF coupled with an Alonso rather unlikely victory in Singapore will throw this year's WDC wide open again.

I believe Mercedes will pose as RBR's main challenger in the next seven (7) races. So the way I look at it, even with rather dodgy gearboxes which might affect the team in the remaining 7 races, Vettel could still afford max 3 retirements and still notch his 4th title in the row.

Too close for comfort at the end, but congrats to Vettel for bagging his 41st pole. I never thought Rosberg could get that close because I thought Vettel's S3 time was untouchable in that final Q3 run.

Had the chance to watch the race highlights of the 1st 5 editions of Singapore GPs. Vettel had rather favorable results in all 5 editions of these GPs finishing 5th, 4th, 2nd, 1st and 1st. With an extra set of fresh options available, he should be the favorite for the race win even if he does not lead into T1 in tomorrow's race. An undercut is always a viable option if he gets stucked behind Rosberg or Grosjean.

A win tomorrow will definitely seal the 4th WDC for Vettel and 4th WCC for RBR. And Adrian Newey does not have to turn up for the remaining six (6) races of this season to concentrate on the 2014 design at Milton Keynes.